Top GOP donors seek to sway candidate choices

Sunday

Feb 3, 2013 at 12:01 AMFeb 3, 2013 at 4:00 PM

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and tea party enthusiasts who GOP leaders worry could complicate efforts to win control of the Senate.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa - The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and tea party enthusiasts who GOP leaders worry could complicate efforts to win control of the Senate.

The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates during the past two election cycles. The effort is the most robust yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline over the party, notably in primary races.

"There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected," said Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, the "super-PAC" behind the project. "We don't view ourselves as being in the incumbent-protection business, but we want to pick the most-conservative candidate who can win."

The effort would put a new twist on the Republican-to-Republican warfare that has consumed the party's primary races in recent years. In effect, the establishment is taking steps to fight back against tea party groups and other conservative organizations that have wielded significant influence in backing candidates who ultimately lost seats to Democrats in the general election.

The first test of the group's influence could come in Iowa, where some Republicans already are concerned about who will run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat. The open Senate seat is the first in Iowa since 1974.

The Conservative Vic-tory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super-PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by vetting prospective contenders for congressional races to try to weed out candidates viewed as too flawed to win general elections.

Party leaders and strategists are placing a heightened focus on taking control of the Senate next year. Republicans must pick up six seats to win a majority.